The Practical Realist

Ok, I know the whole Carrie Prejean issue is old news now, but I’ve gone through a few different thoughts on it now and figure maybe they’re still worth sharing.

In the first place, I should explain that I’m personally against gay marriage. Not to the point that I’d let it overshadow or steal attention from more important issues, but if I were asked I’d give an honest answer.

And that was what happened to Miss California. She was asked a question and she gave her honest answer. She didn’t go in with an agenda, and she wasn’t obnoxious about it when she responded.

So my first reaction to the story about Miss California losing the Miss USA crown over her belief in traditional marriage was the same as a lot of conservatives. I was angry that she was persecuted for simply stating her beliefs honestly. If the judges didn’t want to hear her opinion, then they shouldn’t have asked her for it. And if they did want it, they shouldn’t have punished her for having an opinion different from their own.

But after thinking about it some, and especially after reading her actual response, I couldn’t help but be struck by how dumb it sounded. It doesn’t matter whether you’re for or against gay marriage, but Carrie Prejean made herself sound like an idiot up there. Stupidity, and not principle, is a legitimate reason to deny a contestant the prize at the end. In that light, I no longer hold any resentment for the judges.

Now, in fairness, I wasn’t the one put on the spot, and if Miss Prejean had been given more time to reflect and formulate a response, she might have done a better job. I can’t know whether I could have come up with an intelligent answer during an interview in a situation like that, but here’s the response I wish she could have given instead:

“There are gay people who clearly love each other and I understand their desire to have it recognized as marriage. But no court or legislative body in the world has the authority to do so. Marriage has existed long before the laws and courts of the United States. For as long as there have been people, there has been marriage. And to come along and try to redefine it through some new law or legal opinion is, in my mind, like trying to pass a law redefining ’sunrise’, ‘logic’, or ‘motherhood’. Marriage is what it has always been. God made it, and if you want to change it, you’ll have to take it up with Him.

“The role of the state with respect to marriage is limited to what rights and obligations it chooses to attach to it. If the state should determine that gay couples (or anyone, for that matter) can voluntarily enter into such contracts with or without marriage, then that is entirely within the ability of the state to do. Civil unions come to mind, for instance. But gay couples can never marry, regardless of what laws are passed, because a marriage is between a man and a woman. It has always been that way, and so long as humanity exists, it always will be.”

I’m confident that the suggestions I gave yesterday could stop piracy, but there’s one HUGE weakness in it. The reason the international community hasn’t already ended piracy is simple - the pirates don’t kill their hostages. It is very hard to justify a dangerous commando operation to save hostages when historically, the likelihood is that those captive sailors are being treated like guests. Guests who can’t go home perhaps, but who are well fed, allowed to talk on their phones, and given access to whatever comforts their own ships can provide.

Now compare that to the fate of the French yacht passengers that were rescued in a daring commando raid. The yacht’s owner actually died in that skirmish, and it was entirely possible that other passengers could have been killed as well.

Taking serious action against pirates means that sailors who otherwise would have been released unharmed (after a ransom was paid of course) could be killed, along with the marines who try to rescue them. But until governments decide that piracy is a sufficiently serious threat that some casulaties are acceptable, the pirates will continue to have a free pass. Personally, I think I’d probably support further actions like the French commando raid, but it’s not a decision I wish were mine to make.

However, if the pirates have already begun trying in earnest to sink US vessels, the equation changes drastically. If the Liberty Sun attack really was the first salvo in the pirates’ war with us, we’ve got to quash this threat immediately, even if it means the inevitable deaths of some civilians. Without hesitation, our government has to be willing to take the fight to the pirates and win at any cost.

Piracy made sense in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Pirates could easily hide among ordinary sailors at most ports, and they could set up bases to hold their prizes in any shallow cove. But that ability to hide and evade no longer exists. We can instantly learn when a ship is attacked, and we can know its exact location in real-time. Ships without a valid and official flag-registration (or ones that have been reported hijacked) can’t enter any ports except the few they control off the coast of Somalia. So the pirates can’t hide, and yet somehow they continue to threaten international shipping.

So why have the pirates enjoyed so much success? It’s because we refuse to take the fight to them, and instead we try to engage them only when they actually attack our ships.

Do you think Bin Laden would last long if his base of operations was publicly known?

Today Hillary Clinton released the administration’s new 4-point plan for combating piracy, and to be blunt, I’m unimpressed.

Instead of trying to patrol millions of square miles of ocean for vessels that have no outward indication of hostility until shortly before they attack, we need to go after the infrastructure that actually sustains piracy. Although the state department is going to pursue the pirates’ bank assets, which I agree is a smart idea, the rest of their plan is either reactive, or will take far too long to have an effect.

So, here’s my own 4-point counter plan, arranged by order of importance. Decide for yourself what you think of it.

1. Blockade their home ports: Pirates, like everyone who goes out to sea, have to dock eventually and take on new supplies. Instead of fighting pirates at sea, we have to blockade their ports. The pirates can still put ashore with captured vessels along any shallow coastal area, but this is a far more risky proposition.

   Once they put to shore in some remote cove, we can dispatch a single warship to prevent the pirates from either offloading cargo or taking on supplies and reinforcements. With no easy access to supplies, whether they get a ransom or not, the pirates will eventually be forced to either leave their prize or starve. Even if piracy can continue in some anemic form, without ports, it will be reduced to a mere ghost of its current level.

2. No more ransoms: Shipping companies have been too willing to pay huge ransoms for their crews and ships. I sympathize, but it continues to fund the pirate activities. There have to be serious penalties for funding terrorists through ransoms. Companies that pay them should be barred from entering US ports (and hopefully our allies will be persuaded to extend the same bans to their own ports).

   Pirates aren’t just a bunch of guys who commit piracy for the thrill of it. Without the chance to turn a profit, none of them are going to risk their lives attacking ships. If they have no chance of earning a ransom, the only other way to make money is to steal the cargo and sell it on the black market. But taken together with blockading their home ports, it should prove impossible to offload and sell cargo as well.

   Companies that have employees or ships held now should no longer be allowed to negotiate with the pirates themselves. Instead, an international agency should act as a go-between, and it should only be authorized to offer humanitarian aid and the release of pirates we’ve captured. And to add pressure, the pirates’ bases should face the threat of invasion if the captured sailors are harmed.

3. Letters of marque: While proper navies are blockading pirates’ home ports, privateers should be able to earn bounties on every pirate vessel and crew they manage to disable, sink, or capture.

   Ron Paul has the right idea on this one. It’s a cost-effective strategy that makes it much harder for pirates to be sure when they are attacking an armed or unarmed target. Right now, so long as they avoid obvious warships, the pirates are safe. Under this idea, many of those supposedly innocuous-looking merchants might actually be privateers armed with the weaponry, training and legal authority to not merely defend against raiders, but also come to the aid of other merchants and even actively pursue and attack pirate motherships.

4. Prevent illegal fishing off Somalia’s coast: This gets back to the issue that started it all. Numerous fishermen lost the ability to support themselves because they could not compete against the huge trawlers that fished the coastlines illegally. Somalia, as the uber-failed state, had no way to stop it from happening.

   Many of those fishermen with their own boats and nautical know-how became desperate, and so a few of them were recruited into piracy. Without them, today’s pirates would probably still be a bunch of rough and violent men, but they’d be rough and violent men who stayed on land. If fisherman could once again support themselves, it may not sway the current fishermen-turned-pirates to give up their new occupation, but it could certainly prevent the creation of many future pirates.

Personally, I suspect that all of these (with the possible exception of stopping the illegal fishing) will eventually be implemented, in some form or other. However, I fear that we won’t take these actions until Americans are actually killed.

At least one pirate claimed that today’s attack on the American-flagged Liberty Sun was not an attempted hijacking at all, but an attempted sinking. Descriptions of the attack that I’ve read would seem to support that claim. If that’s true, then the stakes are now considerably higher. The longer we pussyfoot around and refuse to engage with effective strategies, the greater the likelihood of serious tragedy.